Mix and match

SOME very strangely behaved antibodies could force immunologists to rewrite their textbooks. The discovery of these freakish proteins, by a team in Amsterdam, might also help explain some of the mysteries surrounding allergies.

Antibodies, the sentinels of the immune system, are Y-shaped proteins made by a class of white blood cells called B lymphocytes. At the tip of each arm, an antibody has a pair of molecular tweezers known as an antigen-binding site. These grasp a specific target antigen, such as a protein found on the surface of a bacterium.

The textbooks all say that the tweezers on the two arms are identicalmaking the "Y" symmetrical and allowing the antibody to grab two copies of the same antigen. But Rob Aalberse and his colleagues at the University of Amsterdam are challenging this dogma. Working with the Dutch Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service, they claim to have discovered natural antibodies with ...

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